Tooth and Claw

I really love the fact that Bliiz buffed maul and made it more rewarding to hit now, but please blizz when you're gonna implement a new proc, please make sure the aura doesn't overlap with our existing ones. Thanks.

It still strikes me as an "off tank" ability, which is not a role I wish to be pigeonholed into.

IMO "Off Tank" is an obsolete term. A majority of the fights that require multiple tanks, fully utilize both rather than "pigeonholing" one for certain phases. The only true OT fight i can think of falls to a strong dps on Will 10man but I wouldn't label either of the tanks on a boss as MT/OT.

It still strikes me as an "off tank" ability, which is not a role I wish to be pigeonholed into.

I'm still of the mind where I think the ability does move us towards the OT position, as well. Perhaps it's the years of dealing with the stigma of bears being better in the OT position due to various reasons/mechanics (still get push to the OT position when there's a choice of which tank to use since I generate better damage/DPS with low vengeance than my counter-part, as well as utility). While there is a lot of tank swapping in current raid content, there is generally a point where you can make a choice to which tank is tanking and for how long they should be tanking.

There are a couple of things that raise red flags with the ability thus far. If the Tooth and Nail proc made the Maul cost no rage, I wouldn't be as concerned. This reasoning is because, as others have mentioned, the prime time to use Maul is when one is not actively tanking due to rage being better spent on SD/FR in most scenarios. The other area of concern is that the Tooth and Nail absorb is applied to the target, not the druid. While this may seem like splitting hairs, this is what promotes the idea that a Guardian is better to be OTing since they can keep regular auto-attack reduction on the target while the MT takes less damage since they can use all their resources optimally.

Simply put, Tooth and Nail seems be more beneficial to the Guardian's tanking partner rather than the Guardian tank him/herself as currently implemented (which screams, as Kujako stated, as an "off tank" ability).

If the Tooth and Nail proc made the Maul cost no rage, I wouldn't be as concerned.

/boggle

'Cause that would be totally balanced.

This reasoning is because, as others have mentioned, the prime time to use Maul is when one is not actively tanking due to rage being better spent on SD/FR in most scenarios.

Which is perfectly fine. There is no problem here.

Simply put, Tooth and Nail seems be more beneficial to the Guardian's tanking partner rather than the Guardian tank him/herself as currently implemented (which screams, as Kujako stated, as an "off tank" ability).

You're going to be using Maul anyway when you're at 100 Rage and have nothing better to do. It's a straight up buff for us. Not like you're going to be Guardian spec to apply the debuff for your other tank on Vizier or something.

'Cause that would be totally balanced.
...
You're going to be using Maul anyway when you're at 100 Rage and have nothing better to do. It's a straight up buff for us. Not like you're going to be Guardian spec to apply the debuff for your other tank on Vizier or something.

Sure, it's a straight-up buff by itself if we're Mauling anyways, I'm not contesting that. It all has to go back to the intent of why Guardians were given this ability, and whether it meets that goal in an effective manner.

Let's assume that Tooth and Nail was provided to Guardians to help us survive better than before 5.1. While one might be able to squeeze in a Maul or two outside of the 100%HP/SD on CD scenario, that's highly subject to RNG, timing of T&N procs, etc. and can be very risky... so let's assume the 100%HP/SD on CD scenario. If we're in this situation, do we need more survivability? Heck no, that hasn't been really a problem area with Guardians at all, and FR is more than viable if one fails to dodge. If anything, T&N would be in response to SD being RNG-based and providing a bit of buffer to this ability when we're not at max HP and we will have SD charges. However, in this capacity, we'd likely be reducing the uptime of SD at the expense of applying T&N. It all boils down to Maul being originally designed in MoP to be a rage dump and costing survivability loss (via lost rage) at the gain of DPS, and the fact that T&N can be applied when we're using Maul does not change that Maul is still a rage dump and potentially causes a survivability loss in the end. At best, it randomly allows Guardians a buffer in survivability if they use Maul at the wrong time compared to pre 5.1 Maul usage.

Since the most likely use of T&N in active tanking scenarios is when there is no threat to our surviving, I find it very hard to believe T&N was added to increase our survivability and successfully hit the mark in that respect. The flip-side would be that T&N is more for utility than our own personal gain. Whether this is intended or not, I couldn't say, but that's the best fit for where the ability lies right now. Almost all of my T&N applications occur when I'm not actively tanking, which correlates to no net survivability for myself but a positive survivability gain for the other active tank. By no means does this mean you'll just haphazardly add a Guardian tank as a Maul bot to your strategy, but it could potentially lead to having them actively tanking less where possible to maximize the survivability of the other tank (a similar parallel to how Bearcat caused druid tanks to actively tank less to push more DPS).

A third possibility is that Blizz decided to add T&N just to add flavor to Maul. I suppose it hit the mark in this respect, although I personally would've preferred the ability to use Maul more often and ensuring no loss in survivability (along the lines of Prot warriors and HS/Cleave, but I understand why Blizz didn't just clone the ability). T&N still doesn't really inspire me to use Maul more often than I already have, especially if you're a Guardian tank that tries to maximize DPS w/o losing survivability. However, the cost of flavor could lead to Guardians actively tanking less since it functions much better as an OT ability (when you're not actively tanking).

Sure, it's a straight-up buff by itself if we're Mauling anyways, I'm not contesting that. It all has to go back to the intent of why Guardians were given this ability, and whether it meets that goal in an effective manner.

Let's assume that Tooth and Nail was provided to Guardians to help us survive better than before 5.1. While one might be able to squeeze in a Maul or two outside of the 100%HP/SD on CD scenario, that's highly subject to RNG, timing of T&N procs, etc. and can be very risky... so let's assume the 100%HP/SD on CD scenario. If we're in this situation, do we need more survivability? Heck no, that hasn't been really a problem area with Guardians at all, and FR is more than viable if one fails to dodge. If anything, T&N would be in response to SD being RNG-based and providing a bit of buffer to this ability when we're not at max HP and we will have SD charges. However, in this capacity, we'd likely be reducing the uptime of SD at the expense of applying T&N. It all boils down to Maul being originally designed in MoP to be a rage dump and costing survivability loss (via lost rage) at the gain of DPS, and the fact that T&N can be applied when we're using Maul does not change that Maul is still a rage dump and potentially causes a survivability loss in the end. At best, it randomly allows Guardians a buffer in survivability if they use Maul at the wrong time compared to pre 5.1 Maul usage.

Since the most likely use of T&N in active tanking scenarios is when there is no threat to our surviving, I find it very hard to believe T&N was added to increase our survivability and successfully hit the mark in that respect. The flip-side would be that T&N is more for utility than our own personal gain. Whether this is intended or not, I couldn't say, but that's the best fit for where the ability lies right now. Almost all of my T&N applications occur when I'm not actively tanking, which correlates to no net survivability for myself but a positive survivability gain for the other active tank. By no means does this mean you'll just haphazardly add a Guardian tank as a Maul bot to your strategy, but it could potentially lead to having them actively tanking less where possible to maximize the survivability of the other tank (a similar parallel to how Bearcat caused druid tanks to actively tank less to push more DPS).

A third possibility is that Blizz decided to add T&N just to add flavor to Maul. I suppose it hit the mark in this respect, although I personally would've preferred the ability to use Maul more often and ensuring no loss in survivability (along the lines of Prot warriors and HS/Cleave, but I understand why Blizz didn't just clone the ability). T&N still doesn't really inspire me to use Maul more often than I already have, especially if you're a Guardian tank that tries to maximize DPS w/o losing survivability. However, the cost of flavor could lead to Guardians actively tanking less since it functions much better as an OT ability (when you're not actively tanking).

I would not bother discussing this with Arielle, she/he/it seems to defend everything blizz does to bears. Any average bear would realize this puts us into an OT position, crap as a bear I'm the lead of the group and I don't see any other reason to be MT with this change if the other tank is just as skilled as I am. It is like symbiosis now it benefits more the other tank than myself.

You're going to be using Maul anyway when you're at 100 Rage and have nothing better to do.

If you have nothing better to do, then you're not about to take damage, so tooth and claw will do nothing for you. If you are about to take damage, that rage is better spent on savage defense or frenzied regeneration.

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning.

Let's assume that Tooth and Nail was provided to Guardians to help us survive better than before 5.1.

It wasn't. The stated reason GC gave on twitter was to make Maul a more attractive button to press. Not a straight up buff.

although I personally would've preferred the ability to use Maul more often and ensuring no loss in survivability (along the lines of Prot warriors and HS/Cleave, but I understand why Blizz didn't just clone the ability).

I've been asking for this since basically day 1 of Beta. I agree that we needed something to make Maul more attractive, and this certainly does make Maul more attractive. But I'm questioning the logic behind this change because of the value we now provide when not having to worry about Savage Defense or FR.

What I *do* dispute is the idea that this now exclusively relegates us to an "OT" role (which doesn't really exist anymore anyway). Plus we can only really evaluate it with the gear we have available. As RPS values climb later on in the expansion, it's entirely likely that we'll be able to make room for it more and more when actively being swung at.

I would not bother discussing this with Arielle, she/he/it seems to defend everything blizz does to bears.

This is patently false. All I have to do is point at the Beta forums to prove it.

If you have nothing better to do, then you're not about to take damage, so tooth and claw will do nothing for you. If you are about to take damage, that rage is better spent on savage defense or frenzied regeneration.

I think you misunderstood. There are plenty of times where Savage Defense is already running and/or recharging, you are at 100% HP, and you have a Mangle/Auto coming within the next second. In those situations you will Maul. You would've used Maul prior to this change, and you will still use it after. Only this time now you get some mitigation benefit out of it.

I'm not going to respond to individual comments as much as I'd like to here, but there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding

Druids were and are perfectly capable tanks

Druids' damage while tanking defensively was significantly lower than other classes due to having no resource-consuming damage ability that provided active mitigation.

Death knights rune strike anyway as part of their rotation which deals damage and generates runes through talents for more blood strikes.
Paladins use Holy power on SotR which does damage and provides mitigation
etc

So they added mitigation into our damaging ability so that we actually have a reason to use it while WE are tanking, which should bring our defensive damage in line with the other tank classes.

I'm guessing that the auto-attack damage reduction with low vengeance will barely do anything at all, meaning that it won't affect our off-tanking much - just as FR heals for fuck all with low vengeance

I'm guessing that the auto-attack damage reduction with low vengeance will barely do anything at all, meaning that it won't affect our off-tanking much - just as FR heals for fuck all with low vengeance

The minimum value is exactly equal to your Stamina. So definitely a much higher number than 0.

What's this new Tooth & Claw for druid bears in 5.1ptr? Just curious what gap it fills, add more variation?
-Maul is kind of a dead button since rage is better spent on defenses much of the time now. This is an attempt to solve that.

There ya go. They wanted us to use Maul more, and guess what? It still sucks. Why? Because it's still not as good as our other 2 defensive abilities. If I'm tanking, and I'm sitting at 100 rage, I'm still not going to use this crap because I can proc SD for 6 seconds and get 2/3 of my max FR (about 40k for me), both of which beat the living pants off of buffed Maul (about 26k reduction). If they want us to use maul, take away the rage cost like they did to every other damaging ability, or take it away entirely (again like they did with a whole bunch of abilities) and take Mangle off the GCD.

If I want to get my dmg up, I'll proc Berserk or Incarnation. If blizzard really wanted us to do more dmg, then they would up our dmg. But look, since BC, blizzard has never really known what to do with druid tanks. It's like they want us to sorta be the dodgy meat shields we were in BC, but they want active dodgy.... DO they give us a shield or a heal? They keep trying to develop tank spells that are "Nature based" and it's kind of silly. I almost think they should tear the whole spec down and redo it from scratch. I still really like tanking, but at this point I'm convinced that no one on the test team actually plays a guardian or plays it well.

We did some Empress pulls and it was absorbing 40k without vengeance, I added an tellmewhen icon for it with the absorb amount and I did see some pretty high numbers (after an attenuation for example) because you can stack up several T&C.

Tried looking through the logs to understand the inner workings but it is a pain in the ass to analyse.